Women’s Reproductive Rights and the Legacy of Religion in Ireland: The Eighth Amendment and Its Repeal

The changing religious landscape in Ireland is the context for this analysis of the implications of the insertion of the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution (which in 1983 inserted Article 40.3.3 into the Constitution to give the unborn an equal right to life with that of the mother) and its subsequent repeal in the 2018 referendum. It considers how women’s right to abortion (within the limits specified by the Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Act 2018) can be vindicated in the context of claims to freedom of religion or belief and in light of the continuing institutional power of the Catholic church in the provision of healthcare. The broader political implications of the changing religious landscape are also considered, as is the question of whether and how the relationship between religion and politics in Ireland can be re-conceptualised.

Recent Legal Developments: Criminal Justice Decisions of the United States Supreme Court, 2,020 Term

In this paper we review and analyze the criminal justice-related decisions of the 2,020 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court’s voting patterns and opinion authorship. Thirteen of the Court’s 57 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the Fourth Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, and federal criminal statutes. Each of these is discussed in turn.

Menstrual Equity, Organizing and the Struggle for Human Dignity and Gender Equality in Prison

This Essay takes a look at the movement for social change around menstruation, especially through the lens of the criminal legal system and prisons and jails in particular. Part I reviews the issues of period poverty and justice that are driving a larger social movement to recognize that safe and ready access to menstrual hygiene products should be framed through a lens of full civic participation in order to understand its full implications for the lives of people who menstruate. Part II dives into the particular needs and problems of abuse and control that incarcerated and detained people face related to menstruation. Part III examines the growing movement to transform menstruation in America along equity lines that focuses both on the rights of all menstruators while bringing social pressure to bear on behalf of the most vulnerable—incarcerated people, the unhoused, students, and those living in poverty—to demand greater governmental and cultural support for the needs, inclusion, and dignity of all people who menstruate. This Part particularly takes note of the fact that the menstrual equity movement gains strength and force when it centers the leadership and voices of people who menstruate as key players demanding social change and evolution of the culture as a whole. Part IV examines the importance of the momentum and success this social movement represents for potential litigation strategies to develop constitutional jurisprudence regarding incarcerated people and menstrual equity. It observes that the pertinent “evolving standards of decency” that inform Eighth Amendment jurisprudence must and will be influenced by the prevailing movement for menstrual equity as a deliberate strategy to ensure that incarcerated people who menstruate are not left out of the social development and rights framework that menstrual equity demands. At the same time this evolution in jurisprudence represent the opportunity for Eighth Amendment jurisprudence—and constitutional framework generally—to place a greater focus on the need for human dignity as a cornerstone of the law.

The jurisprudence of universal subjectivity: COVID-19, vulnerability and housing

Drawing upon Martha Fineman’s vulnerability theory, the paper argues that the legal claims of homeless appellants before and during the COVID-19 pandemic illustrate our universal vulnerability which stems from the essential, life-sustaining activities flowing from the ontological status of the human body. By recognizing that housing availability has constitutional significance because it provides for life-sustaining activities such as sleeping, eating and lying down, I argue that the legal rationale reviewed in the paper underscores the empirical, ontological reality of the body as the basis for a jurisprudence of universal vulnerability. By tracing the constitutional basis of this jurisprudence from Right to Travel to Eighth Amendment grounds during COVID-19, the paper outlines a distinct legal paradigm for understanding vulnerability in its universal, constant and essential form – one of the central premises of vulnerability theory.

The intersection of nation and gender in the Linguistic Landscape of Ireland’s Eighth Amendment referendum campaign

In May 2018, voters in the Republic of Ireland passed a referendum proposal to repeal the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, lifting the Irish state’s near-total ban on abortion. Scholars have argued that Ireland’s abortion ban has historically played a key role in the construction of Irish national identity along Catholic, traditional, and heteronormative lines, meaning the lead-up to the vote allowed for key insights into the discursive construction of national identity and gender in Ireland. Drawing on theoretical discussions in both the nationalism and Linguistic Landscape (LL) literature and adopting a qualitative, multimodal approach to analyse the referendum campaign’s LL, I argue that there was a dominant understanding of the relationship between women and Irish national identity, predicated on a positive stance towards Irish identity, while any dissenting voices which questioned whether advancing gender equality was compatible with nationalist ideology were confined to the margins of the debate.